000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

Proper 10 [15]/Year A 61
first. The conflict was so intense that Rebekah expressed regret at the pregnancy
(Gen. 25:22). God stated that Rebekah carried not only two infants
but two nations, and, furthermore, by divine decree, the law of primogeniture
was reversed in this case: the elder Esau would serve the younger Jacob
(Gen. 25:23). 16 Israel and Edom are thus blood siblings and their tensions
are sibling rivalry. In the background, God seeks to bless both.
The names of the twins reveal their character. The first to emerge from
the womb “came out red” with a hairy body. The word red (‘admoni) is a
play on the word Edom (meaning red or ruddy) and probably refers to
ruddy skin. The hairy quality anticipates Genesis 27:11–24. In some circles
in antiquity, excessive body hair was regarded as crude, a detail that
makes a social comment on Edomites (Gen. 25:25). 17 The younger comes
from the womb holding to Esau’s heel, which the narrator associates with
the name Jacob to mean that the younger twin sought to supplant the
older. The picture of Jacob as supplanter and struggler become very
important in Genesis 26–32.
Esau was a hunter and Jacob a farmer (Gen. 25:27–28). Given the biblical
editors’ aversion to killing (Gen. 1:26–28; 9:3–4), this is an implicit theological
comment not only on the twins but on the communities descended
from them. The Edomites and those like them are descended from a people
with an inclination to violence, whereas Israel comes from stock that, at
its best, lives in covenant with other elements of creation. However, the
notion of covenant is not idealized, as we see in the next verses.
In Genesis 25:29–34 the narrator exposes both twins as living short of
divine purposes. Jacob was cooking a stew when a famished Esau appeared.
Esau saw the stew simply as “red stuff,” a play on “Edom” (vv. 29–30), evidently
not knowing, as a person living in community should, that the
dish was lentil stew (v. 34). He was so undisciplined that he gave up his
birthright to satisfy his immediate hunger. Jacob lived out the interpretation
given him in 25:26 by seizing Esau’s weakened state to supplant the
older twin. This pattern of behavior characterizes Jacob in the next chapters,
and presages aspects of Israel’s later life when the community practices
other forms of injustice.
The biblical redactors use these associations to explain the irascible
behavior of the Edomites in later centuries (e.g., Isa. 11:10–16; 34:1–17;
Jer. 49:7–22; Ezek. 35:1–15; Amos 1:6–11; 2:1; Obad. 1–21; Mal. 1:2–4).
However, some biblical writers preserve positive pictures of the Edomites.
For example, the characters in the book of Job are Edomites (assuming
Uz was in Edom), and the Deuteronomic theologians welcome Edomites
(Deut. 23:8).